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What’s that smell?

Liam had a HUGE POOP at school today. I just finished cleaning his chair. — K

I’m thinking that somewhere there may be families out there who outgrow texting each other about poop. We’ll never be one of them. When I got the text I chuckled and moved on to the next thing on my plate at work that afternoon but something started gnawing at me. Something I hadn’t thought of before.

A few posts ago I talked about how I had never thought much about Liam making friends. I guess I never thought much about the flipside of that either. Maybe in a general sense of being accepted for who he is but the specifics of social situations that Liam would find himself continue to be hard to imagine.

So I called Karin. I wasn’t going to get much more work done if I didn’t. “Do you think the other kids make fun of him when this happens? I mean, what do the other kids say?” I have always loved the fact that Liam is in an integrated classroom along with children of all needs, from “typical”, “normal” kids all the way to, ..well, Liam, and many shades between. At this age especially, it benefits them all. But what are the other kids going to say about the kid who poops in class? This isn’t the first time it’s happened for sure, but the image of Karin having to clean Liam’s wheelchair when he got home jarred loose a fear that it wasn’t the wheelchair, the vent, or even the seizures that would isolate Liam from his classmates, but things like this.

Karin assured me that everyone at school loves Liam and it’s happened before so I shouldn’t worry about it at all. She directed the conversation to how good the rest of his day was and I went back to work. Half an hour later Karin called me back.

“I was thinking about what you said and so I asked W (Liam’s nurse) about it. Liam and his friend A were holding hands and working on a craft the whole time “it” was happening and even he had no idea why W excused Liam to the nurses station to change him. I don’t think anyone other than W even knew what happened.” She said. I guess my asking got Karin thinking about it too. I don’t think she was ever worried about it like I was, but enough of a thought that she asked W for more details.

“Besides,” she said “according to W he was only one of the three that pooped in class today.”

9 kids varying from typical to medically complex and 3 of them pooped in class just today?! What the hell am I worrying about?